State-Run Search Engine to Launch in Spring

A state-run Internet search engine will be launched this spring, Alexei Basov, vice president of state telecoms company Rostelecom, said Wednesday.

Rostelecom plans to grab market share for the new search engine, called Sputnik, by making it the automatic preference in state companies and government departments.

In 2012, the state employed 25.7 percent of the working population, according to the Economic Development Ministry.

Russian media reported that Rostelcom was developing a state-owned search engine last October. Sputnik’s development, for which Rostelecom went on a hiring spree from leading Russian internet firms, cost less than $42 million, Basov said.

The idea of creating a state search engine arose in 2008 after Russia's short war against neighboring Georgia, opposition member of parliament Ilya Ponomaryov told Vedomosti. Seeing that the information rising to the top of existing search engines did not always chime with the government line, officials realized the desirability of an aggregator more amenable to the state's interests, Ponomaryov said.

No normalization of ties between Ukraine and Russia is likely unless the region of Crimea, now under Russian control, is returned to Kiev's sovereignty, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said Tuesday.

Boris Nemtsov, an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin and Russia's role in the Ukraine crisis, has been shot dead outside the Kremlin in a murder that underscored the risks taken by the Russian opposition.

The murder of Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov has dampened any hope for a peaceful political transition in Russia away from President Vladimir Putin's government, Garry Kasparov, a prominent opposition voice, has said.

A spokesperson for Moscow's information technology department has denied media reports that some of the surveillance cameras around the Kremlin had been switched off at the time of Boris Nemtsov's murder.

The U.S. State Department and FBI have announced a $3 million reward for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Russian Yevgeny Bogachev, the highest bounty U.S. authorities have ever offered in a cyber case.